Hyōgai kanji

Hyōgai kanji are special Chinese characters used in the Japanese writing system. They are called hyōgai because they are not included in the two main lists of kanji that are taught in schools. These main lists are the jōyō kanji, which are the most common characters taught from primary to secondary school, and the jinmeiyō kanji, which are extra characters allowed for use in personal names.

Even though hyōgai kanji are not part of these main lists, they are still important. They appear in many places, such as literature, science, and even some modern technology. Because they are not part of the standard teaching, they can be harder to learn and recognize.

The use of hyōgai kanji shows the richness and depth of the Japanese writing system. It allows writers and speakers to express very specific ideas and concepts that might not be covered by the more common characters. Understanding these characters can help people appreciate the full range of Japanese texts and history.

Number of hyōgaiji

Because hyōgaiji is a broad category for "all unlisted kanji", there is no complete list or exact count of how many exist. The highest level of the Kanji kentei test covers about 6,000 characters, with half being hyōgaiji and the other half from official lists (2,136 jōyō kanji and 863 jinmeiyō kanji). Large dictionaries like the _Kangxi Dictionary and the 20th century Dai Kan-Wa jiten contain around 47,000 and 50,000 characters respectively, many of which would be considered hyōgaiji if used in Japanese.

Traditional and simplified forms

Many commonly used Japanese symbols, called jōyō kanji, have simpler versions called shinjitai. However, hyōgaiji—symbols not on the main lists—are usually printed in their older, traditional forms, like 臍, even when simpler versions exist.

Some newspapers, like The Asahi Shimbun, created their own simplified symbols, called Asahi characters, which have special codes for computers. When using computers, many fonts show hyōgaiji in mixed forms—some traditional and some simplified—depending on what the font includes. For example, the word for "bread," 麺麭 (pan), shows one part simplified and the other not. This mixing can look strange. With the release of Mac OS X v10.5 "Leopard" in 2007, some fonts began showing hyōgaiji in their proper traditional forms.

Uses

The character 嘘 (uso, "lie, falsehood") is often mentioned as a common example of a hyōgaiji. Even though it is recommended to write this word using hiragana or katakana, surveys show that many people still use the kanji version.

Hyōgaiji are often found in the names of wagashi and are used in manga for style, especially in character names and place names, usually with furigana to help readers. Sometimes, modern words from Mandarin Chinese are written with their original characters in Japan, which can also be considered hyōgaiji. This happens often in mahjong terms, where the characters are used with special pronunciations.